The Death Penalty in College Football

Given what we've seen from OSU, and also with today's news about The "U", college football fans are faced with a major question; Should the death penalty ever be used in college football? Given the complete devastation that it caused for SMU, will it ever be used again?

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The NCAA has said it would never be used again. It would be too messy, especially for a team in a major conference. It would not be in the NCAA's best financial interests to bar a major program like that.

Did they actually say absolutely never again? Because the death penalty remains in the bylaws. And this Miami business, if largely true, is obviously death penalty material. Especially given Miami's previous scandal.

The death penalty bylaw reads that it can only be imposed on a repeat violator if their probation came within the last five years of their current major violation. A separate bylaw interpretation says that the NCAA can reach back beyond their statute of limitations to investigate a pattern of closely related behavior. Shapiro's behavior is obviously a ridiculous, habitual pattern. According to the probe from Yahoo!, he started "boosting" in 2001. Miami was placed on 3-year probation in 1995 and got off in 1998. According to my lawyerly statute interpretation, if an NCAA investigation includes violations from 01, 02, or 03, that would be within the 5-year window the NCAA requires to levy the death penalty. It sounds like it will be up to them on whether to drop the hammer, errr, nuclear bomb.

I wouldn't say it's death penalty material. SMU's scandal remains far and above the worst scandal in NCAAF history, where the team violated major rules, got caught, and then were found to be continuing to violate those rules. Miami's scandal is major and will likely result in tough sanctions, but I can't see the NCAA banning them for a year (especially when it seems that the scandal has little/no connection to the current team). Gotta feel for Al Golden, though. Guy works his way through the ranks to get to a major football program and gets slammed like this before his first game

I bet if you dig you'll find that there are more on the team. I believe he was reportedly still giving gifts as late as in 2010. I don't think they should get the death penalty, either, but a firm tap out submission would work just as well. Let's be honest, the NCAA is about money. They can't kill off one of their cash cows no matter how bad of a reputation they have. OSU and Miami are going to get drilled, but not Chernobyl'd.

The University known formerly as "The U" and Osu are too valuable, and have too many potential NFLers on their current rosters, to throw obstacles into the path of all those potential lucrative careers to banish them all to the Sun Belt.

College Football is a "cash cow" for the NCAA, and it's consistently perpetuated, even by that main stream media. Just look at the NCAA's financial reports. Here's one from 2008 (first one that came up in google search, but you can dig into ncaa.org to find most recent.) Almost the entirety of the money the organization brings in is from the TV contract for March Madness. The balance is for miscellaneous stuff like the tournaments it runs.

Football money (TV contracts and Bowl payouts) goes to conferences and subsequently to teams. That's why Slive, Delany, and co. are so powerful. The short of it: while Miami not playing college football wouldn't be a great thing for college football, it would have almost zero impact on the money NCAA organization sees.

When things like this happen they should all get the same penalty. 2 year bowl ban, 10 scholarships lost per year for 3 years. Essentially neuters the program for 5 years. I think that is a very big deterrent.

"Things like this" seems pretty vague. Do you mean any sort of recruiting violations at all, no matter how many players are involved or how knowledgeable the coaching staff and the institution were or when the violations occurred?

Even though a neat little standard punishment would make us all feel better about the arbitrariness of the NCAA's enforcement mechanisms, I think this is an area where you need to allow for maximum nuance and flexibility.

They mentioned it would be extreme circumstances that it would be used. I think that this stuff is only going to get worse. They should use it. Make an example of a school, prove a point and scare the rest of the nation straight for a while. Doing it to a big program is the only way to do it too. You can't give another SMU size school the death penalty. Slap it on Ohio, Auburn or The U... now you're talking.

They have in fact mentioned that they might use the death penalty. Both in the Baylor MBB case and the last Alabama case they said they didn't use it because of actions taken by the school subsequent to their infractions. It's pretty clear they look for reasons not to use it

There have been people saying the NCAA will never use the death penalty again, but that's always been their speculation, not from the NCAA itself.

True, but the pattern (granted it was used once) was for the death penalty to apply to (1) repeat offenders and (2) multiple sports. Clearly the multiple sports is met, if allegations are true (stemming from Frank Haith - basketball - and football). The repeat offender status is a bit more dicey. There is no indication that the U was previously on probation in recent memory. In fact, Randy Shannon had cleaned up the program, or so it seemed.

1. SMU was in a major conference. It wasn't the SEC or the Big Ten by any means, but a conference with UT, Texas A&M, Arkansas, and TTech probably wouldn't be considered a CUSA type substance that it's in now.

2. Miami and SMU have very similar cases. SMU was paying players with coaches complicit in the dealings. They were caught and didn't seriously institute reforms. Miami did the same thing, and it happend through their probationary period. The infractions are on the same massive scale that SMU was on.

In essence, this is like USC x 30 or 40. USC was found guilty based on 1 player recieving massive improper benefits with a coach who know or should have known about it. Miami will find the same thing, only with 20+ first round picks over 10+ years and 6+ coaches who were in on it.

SMU got it particularly bad. I could see Miami getting the death penalty, just not to the extent SMU did. For instance, banned from playing games for a season, some scholarship losses (not 55 like SMU's ban, though), and a 3+ year bowl ban with 5 years probation. However, allow the team to practice in pads during season (if the NCAA *can* allow that).

Kentucky's basketball program got hit with it in the 1950s, Southern Louisianna basketball got hit in the 1970s, and a few division two/three schools have gotten it for other sports as well.

Also, SMU got much more than just a ban from competing. They got a 55 scholarship reduction, an assistant coach reduction, a ban on recruiting for a season (this may be included in the actual death penalty law; I'll admit I haven't read it), probation, and a bowl/TV ban past the season bans. Plus they were banned for two seasons (although the second was only banned from home games), not just one.

I just want to make sure that when people are considering whether or not the NCAA wll issue the death penalty, they know it's only the ban on playing a season; we aren't necessarily talking SMU like sanctions yet. Close, obviously, but not quite.

death penalty-- Morehouse's men's soccer program and MacMurray's men's tennis program-- were not on probation and had no prior violations before the axe fell on them. The NCAA ruled that the violations and lack of institutional control in those cases were so egregious that competition bans were required. Now, it's very difficult to see the NCAA handing down a similar penalty to an FBS football program, particularly one as prominent as Miami, but the school's past history may come into play here. Miami drew some of the harshest penalties in NCAA history in 1995, after an investigation that revealed institutional wrongdoing on a level considerably worse than what's been alleged against the Hurricanes by Yahoo! Sports(IMO), and the NCAA can waive its statute of limitations if there is compelling evidence of severe violations, as there would seem to be here. Assuming that these allegations are proven, Miami's defense is going to be that this was a rogue booster acting with the assistance of a few coaches who aren't employed by the school any more. This case, on its own merits, would most closely resemble the Michigan basketball scandal(though there are obvious differences), when Ed Martin's need to launder gambling profits wound up helping to wreck Michigan basketball for over a decade. However, if the NCAA waives the statute of limitations, and takes the view that the Shapiro case represents a continuation or resumption of the sort of lack of institutional control the NCAA hung on Miami in 1995, then the most severe penalties could come into play. I doubt that happens-- if I had to guess, taking the allegations at face value, Miami's looking at a USC-type penalty here.

People at my work were talking one day about giving OSU a TV ban. That's the punishment I don't ever see happening aggain. That's punishing the other teams as well. What I think is a good punishment is a money ban. Team A can play on TV, but they get none of the profits from it.

I think a regional TV ban would work. No broadcasting of games within the greater Columbus/Ohio area would be a real killer.

The option to really hurt the pocketbooks is to make them play an entire schedule on the road. Flip all home games to road games for 2 years, and that's approaching $100 million while also putting them at a competitive disadvantage.

No way the NCAA hands out TV bans, millions will be lost. TV contracts is where all the revenue comes in, too much at stake to hand out bans now adays. The NCAA needs a system that punishes the people who commit the violations, not the new coaches/athletes.

I was a HUGE fan of Sean Taylor, he was one of my favorite defenders in all of football. I spent the better part of 2004, praying that there would be some way he could have slipped to the Lions in the draft. It hurts a bit to see someone you respected so much be involved in something as blatantly wrong as this. It harms his legacy in my eyes, that may be a bit harsh, but it's the truth.

I truly disdain Ohio State, but to compare what happened at OSU to what has been reported in Miami is insane.

Miami's situation is bad and if the death penalty is ever coming out again it'll be now. I don't think we'll see if though. More like losing dozens of schollies over several years, a long bowl ban, and a really, really long probation...not to mention that the last decade will be wiped out of the history books (not that that really matters).

The NCAA has it wrong. The death penalty should be their starting point for major violations, from which teams can earn lesser penalties based on cooperation, honesty, etc. Teams would be much more willing to talk openly with the NCAA if the incentive was avoiding the death penalty. Think a plea deal rather than a trial. It usually works for Jack McCoy.

the only way the NCAA even thinks about the death penalty in this case against the "U" is if they can find something showing that the AD and or the school president knew this was going on the whole time. without that the NCAA cannot come down as hard as they should, because all miami has to do is say "those coaches aren't here and we'll kick the current players off the team and forfeit some games." or something along those lines.i'm pretty sure thats what what OSU did with the NCAA when they came up with their "self imposed" sanctions.

as for comparing this one to what SMU was doing is still not even close, yes there are similarites but thats it. the NCAA was able to prove that the SMU AD and school president both knew what was going on the first time around, and then was able to prove that they still knew what was going on after they were put on probation by the NCAA. SMU knowingly let the boosters do whatever they wanted. IIRC from the 30 for 30 when SMU got caught for the second time and they asked the boosters to stop paying the players, the boosters told them that ok thats fine, but you have to understand that YOU still have a pay roll to meet for the current players and SMU said ok...

now does the "U" deserve the death penalty, yes because its the only way other schools will learn. are they going to get it, probably not unless the NCAA or yahoo comes up with a smoking gun linking higher ups to all of this...

.....part of me says that Miami does not exactly get sent to the gallows, although they might be able to see them from where they end up. In any event, they couldn't find someone at Miami who knew that rather famous line spoken by Sidney Carton in "A Tale Of Two Cities", so any trip to the gallows wouldn't be terribly dramatic for them.

As a graduate of both the University of Michigan and University of Miami, I am upset and offended by the callousness and ignorance of some comments on this board.

You read a single article relaying the story of a convicted fraudster (or a snippet of snippet summarizing the article - I doubt many of you actually read the yahoo sports article) and you immediately call for the death penalty? My God. I hope none of you calling for the death penalty ever sit on a jury in an actual court of law!

Please know that there are more Canes fans on our current Michigan football team and more Wolverines/Canes across the country than you may realize. For those of you older than 9 (given the immaturity of some comments I'm not sure there are many), remember that the two UMs are united by a common hatred for that school down (Chris Gamble Pass Interference). We should be pulling for the U, not calling for its head.

And for those of you who still can't find it in your hearts, F you. It's a Canes thing. You wouldn't understand.

I read the Yahoo article. I also read the other posts in this thread. You decide to attack us for our immaturity in a thread where nobody thinks Miami is getting the death penalty and no one is necessarily in favor of it. Let me take a wild guess. You're so blinded by rage you can't see straight.

Why on earth you think fans of any other school should be rallying behind the Canes in the wake of this story is totally beyond me. Good luck finding them anywhere. Try the OSU boards. They're more sympathetic when it comes to sustained widespread cheating. Plus they should love you guys right now.

It was just one article with an account by a convicted fraudster. Doesn't sound too bad until until you read about the documentation and corroboration he has. If I were you I'd worry a lot more about your beloved U getting the death penalty than what we think. This is not going to end well for Miami.

"And for those of you who still can't find it in your hearts, F you. It's a Canes thing. You wouldn't understand." - agomezmia

Having a booster convicted of running a Ponzi scheme and handing out nine crap-tons of illegal benefits to players for YEARS is a Canes thing? You're right - I don't understand that sort of behavior at all.

Between USC, OSU and the U, it seems like there's all kinds of things going on that Michigan fans just "wouldn't understand". But that's okay. Especially when it seems like "understanding" roughly translates to "yeah we cheated. He'll yeah we did. But I don't want to talk about it"

But you can't really be a fan of each of their football teams, other in the most shallow way, because they're on opposite ends of the spectrum. Maybe you have to be "old enough" to remember how corrupt that program was, and has been. It pretty much doesn't stand for anything Michigan stands for. Which you obviously don't understand.

I believe what we have here is an example of the old 'throw a bunch of shit at the jury and hope they buy at least one argument' defense gambit. We have...

1. The witness is unreliable.
2. There's been a rush to judgement.
3. My client is more like you than you might believe. Also, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
4. You simply don't understand my client's experience.

I can't speak for anybody else, but I read the entire article. It's very damning, in no small part because of all of the corroborating evidence. There are credit card bills, financial statements, and numerous corroborating witnesses. There are also photographs.

I think the Yahoo Sports site on the U scandal is up to a small book. There's the main article, an article on each and every player/coach they can corroborate, plus additional follow-on articles, like "Why Miami is Trouble" that the Michigan/Miami grad may want to read:

Most damning, however, is the Miami administration allowing Nevin Shapiro into its world and then never kicking him out.

Just this year Ohio State was able to avoid a lack of institutional control charge by arguing only then-head coach Jim Tressel knew of violations within the program....

Even by the loose standards the NCAA allows, it doesn’t seem plausible Miami could make that claim with Nevin Shapiro. This wasn’t the case of just one action or one relationship with a coach, Shapiro says he dealt with seven different football and basketball coaches, regularly took them out to dinner and strip clubs and even loaned one $5,000.

...Shapiro had been honored by the school on the field during games and taken in action from the Canes sideline. He had access to practices. He twice led the team onto the field and once flew to a road game on the team charter.

When Miami was looking for a replacement for head coach Larry Coker after the 2006 season, Shapiro met with Shalala and offered not to just coach the team for free, but to personally pay $1 million a year for the nation’s best offensive and defensive coordinators.

While these violations are egregious if true, the NCAA won't call for the death penalty, even if worse crimes end up surfacing.

It's unfortunate, because I see these types of scandals increasing in frequency in the current climate of out-of-control boosters and win-at-all-costs coaches. At the end of the day, these transgressors have no reason to believe that the NCAA will actually come back with any punishment that approaches the severity of the crime. Until a program gets hammered again in the manner of an SMU, you'll see these scenarios continue to play out every season.

The NCAA President Mark Emmert was just on Mike and Mike and he made it sound like the Death Penalty wasn't off the board as a penalty. He sounds pretty serious about cleaning up these problems as evidenced by the meeting last week with college presidents. They are going to summarize his comments after the break.

Was listening to Bill King this morning, and a caller brought up an interesting point. He asked Bill if there was any way the NFL could get involved such that players involved in the execution of major violations would suffer pro-active penalties via the NFL. In other words, creating an NFL environment where college players expecting to go to the next level would think twice before committing college violations.

Bill was adamant that it would never happen. That the NFL is only interested in talent that can take teams to the Superbowl, irrespective of player character or previous troubles. And barring some kind of legal requirement, the NFL will always stay out of NCAA business.

Whether it's with Miami or the next school, eventually the NCAA will get tired of the same rules being broken across college football and one school will be hit with the hammer. With the amount of schools that are thumbing their nose at the system, whether it be recruiting violations or gifts given to athletes of the teams, the punishments will increase in severity until the death penalty is the only option left. I could also see someone in the ncaa realizing this and saying that they want to stop it/severely slow it down before they waste the next 5 to 10 years dealing with individual cases, and they will proceed to give the death penalty to the next school or just give it to Miami.

Right that the system is broken, wrong that penalties won't work. The thing with punishment like the death penalty is that it only works as a deterrent if you're willing to use it, and do from time to time.

While it might not set Miami back 20 ish years as it did SMU it would still cause problems.

First with the scholarship losses that SMU had that drastically cuts down your roster and you need to spend a while getting back up to a decent two deep.

Second you probably would not be able to pull in a top rate coach right away and might have to live with what you can get.

Third FSU and Florida would absolutely gain an advantage in recruiting in Florida while Miami is hurt and if FSU/Florida can pull of some championships in that time period its just a bigger recruiting pitch for them.

After a while of denying OSU basically admitted the lying and problems to try and gain favor with the NCAA. Given the fact that they might not view the problem as one thing (so far no other official NOA mentioning stuff beyond the tats and TP/JT) and the fact that its more of a public perception that the NCAA needs to come down hard to avoid this in the future and not look pathetic they might just hammer Miami hard since that is the most recent program in the public's sights (and from the sound of it worse transgressions that OSU).

I don't know if OSU will get hit harder, but as long as they don't get off easier than what it seemed they would get everything should be fine.

"Back to UM at 6am tomorrow, where I half expect Coach Golden to be dressed as a clown and fired out of a cannon onto the practice field. It will be an absolute circus and it’s completely deserved. This is arguably the biggest scandal in college sports since SMU and that’s not just my take – that’s the stance of every national writer I’ve read this evening."

Seems like he has it in perspective. Rivals has the Canes 2012 class at #5 ATM. Wonder how that's going to shake out. You have to think they are going to make OSU's recruiting headaches seem pleasant.

If I were Miami, I would probably take the SMU death penalty package over a decade long TV/Bowl ban with massive scholarship reductions.

I think in today's environment, there is no shortage of hungry assistant coaches/MAC-esque/FCS/D2 coaches who would leap at the chance to coach even a crippled Miami post death penalty.

I think you can probably recruit lots of kids post death penatly fairly easily. Those recruits have the guaranteed option of playing early. Couple that with the fact that it's located in Miami, and I bet they recover in a few years.

Meanwhile, a TV/Bowl ban with lots of schollies gone would kill a program for lots of recruits. They might as well commit to a place like FIU and have a glimmer of hope to make a bowl.

simple solution...death penalty that is the only thing good enough for Miami. I dont care that they were not on probation at the time but they were put on probation for the exact same thing hence they obviously have not learned there lesson.

It needs to be used now, and it needs to be used quickly to stop all these scandals, I dont agree with Bilas all the time but he has it correct that the NCAA cannot be the prosecutor, jury, and judge.

The system is broken it needs radical fixes or they may as well just pay the godamn players and we can have 2 professional leagues.

After ex-Miami AD and infractions committee chairman Paul Dee's statements regarding the USC case, the NCAA is backed into a corner here. They will have to give YTM the death penalty to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy.

Of course, one would think that they would give THE Ohio State University a severe penalty to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy, too, but they have been successful at keeping the conflict of interest low-profile.

Just thinking outside the box a little, how feasible do you guys think this punishment could be: Force the offender to move X number of home games to away games.

The intent would be to take the revenue away from the offender. It might be a little bit of a logistical mess trying to make availability in the stadiums for the opponents, but a neutral site could always be a possibility.

I'm thinking there must be some other creative ways to hit them in the pocketbooks. NCAA doesn't seem willing to do a TV blackout, but you could at least physically move the games.

I keep hearing this as a solution from various sources. I think its a fine idea, but it would have to be levied at least a year in advance to avoid all hell breaking loose. I've booked flights and lodging for me and my son for the two games we're attending and I would be appropriately outraged if those games were moved elsewhere before the season started.

The 80's were an incredibly dirty time in college football and there were a ton of shady programs coming from out of nowhere to suddenly become powers (SMU, Miami and Florida State being the most notable). The SWC in particular was widely known as the most corrupt conference in the nation, it's probable that in 70's and 80's every team in the league was cheating. SMU made the mistake of getting caught twice and they deserved what they got. But make no mistake, they were being made an example of.

Now, in an era where Alabama, USC, North Carolina, Ohio State, Auburn and Oregon have all been hit with allegations over the past few years, they might be willing to make an example again. I don't think the death penalty is in play, but they'll do everything but including bowl and TV bans that will keep the U down for a decade plus

The 80's were an incredibly dirty time in college football and there were a ton of shady programs coming from out of nowhere to suddenly become powers (SMU, Miami and Florida State being the most notable). The SWC in particular was widely known as the most corrupt conference in the nation, it's probable that in 70's and 80's every team in the league was cheating. SMU made the mistake of getting caught twice and they deserved what they got. But make no mistake, they were being made an example of.

Now, in an era where Alabama, USC, North Carolina, Ohio State, Auburn and Oregon have all been hit with allegations over the past few years, they might be willing to make an example again. I don't think the death penalty is in play, but they'll do everything but including bowl and TV bans that will keep the U down for a decade plus

People tend to compare SMU and Miami like SMU wasn't a major program the time they got hit... when they got hit they were competing for national championships and the SWC was at all time high. I seriously don't believe Miami won't get the Death penalty for the one and only reason that they wouldn't survive it. Two years with out Miami football would absolutely hinder the ACC and talk of Expansion might even grow MORE rampid with teams from the BiG 10, SEC, and Big East trying to Pouch ACC teams... Miami deserves the death penalty if these allegations are at least a third true and by all indictations and all these nervous interviews former players, coaches, and agents are giving its prolly not even the whole story...

Its a shame to see such an Iconic brand like the "U" tarnished... but it they never cheated they prolly wouldn't have become a brand to begin with...